Twitter is thinking of ‘replacing’ follower counts with a more useful metric that shows how many people actually read your tweet. What marketeers would call ‘Reach’.

Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder who still sits on Twitter’s board, kinda suggested that, at an event in New York.

Now that Twitter is taking more control of how its tweets can be displayed, all manner of things are being rethought. Just this week we were at an event where frustrated marketing managers opinioned about the lack of information about how many people see their wonderfully crafted missives. Of course Facebook gives you that kind of data for each post. And now Twitter can think of doing that as well.

Facebook also plonks an Engagement rate (Likes, shares, Comments over a week) right next to Like counts. An Engagement rate and a Reach rate is not quite the same thing of course, the former being more restrictive (and accurate – they can measure if you had their app open, but who knows if you actually read the content).

It’s unlikely that Twitter will remove follower counts wholesale (they will have some very irate users), but the inclusion of a Reach or Engagement rate should make Klout, Kred and PeerIndex worried.